I felt warm all over, lured into his gaze, his charm. He wasn’t like every other straight guy in San Francisco who rattled off the Mark Twain summer-winter line as if he were the cleverest male in all the universe. Todd was clever, he was charming, he was smart. He knew something other people didn’t know.
Sweetly, he added, “I like that one better.”
We chatted until my stop. As I stood up I reeled off the one San Francisco quote I knew. “You know what Oscar Wilde said? Anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.”
“Don’t disappear. Have dinner with me this weekend.”
“I won’t. And I will.” Then I hopped off the bus and counted down the hours until the weekend.
I cringe now at the memory, but that was all it took back then. I have always fallen first for cleverness, for smarts, for wit. Looks have been secondary.
That’s about to change, I tell myself, because looks are clearly where Dave Dybdahl excels. He is ridiculously handsome. He’s wearing jeans, work boots and a white ribbed tee-shirt. Twin straps from a purple Jansport backpack line his shoulders. Even from a distance, even from twenty feet away, I can tell – heck, anyone within eye-goggling distance can tell – he is fantastically cut. His shirt isn’t snugly, but it’s near enough to his body so I can make out the firmness of his pecs underneath the fabric, the absence of any fat on his belly, the slight bulge of his biceps peeking out right where the shirt sleeves end.
His body isn’t the only thing chiseled. As he nears me, I take in his well-designed face again, like a model, an escort, with Johnny Depp-esque cheekbones, deep blue eyes and a subtle wave in his brown hair. I take my headphones out of my ears and gently lay my iPod on the bench. I smile, a little nervously, and stand up. I am not sure what the proper protocol is – shake hands or hug? I rack my brains trying to remember how a first date usually starts. It’s been eons, entire evolutionary stages it seems, since I last went on a date. I could say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, mess up the secret handshake that experienced daters know, a sure cue I’m a newbie. I’m probably on some Do Not Date list, like that Do Not Call List.
I err on the side of friendliness, reaching out for a quick, short hug, his hands touching my hair briefly.
“Hey there to you,” Dave says.
“Good to see you again.”
I sit down on the bench. He follows suit. I reach for my iPod, tucking it safely away in the small lime green vinyl purse I switched to for the date. The purse is covered in yellow lettering listing “hello” and “goodbye” in a smattering of foreign languages. It’s my date purse. This purse hasn’t gotten any action in years.
“Were you just bopping out on your iPod?” Dave asks.
Bopping out?
But at least we have the iPod icebreaker to get the conversation going. “Billie Holiday. I love the classics. I’m kind of a retro girl.” I gesture to my shirt.
He nods a couple times. A thoughtful look descends on his face, like he’s considering what I just said. “I gotta admit, I’m pretty good with music. But you stumped me right there. I don’t know him. What does Billy boy sing?”
“No, no. Billie’s a girl. Billie’s a lady actually. You know Lady Day, first lady of jazz?” I say to prompt him, trying to jog his memory. I’ve got to believe the gears in his brain simply sputtered for a moment, hit a tiny roadblock. He’ll get back on track, I tell myself. So I keep going. “You know she sang You Go To My Head, Embraceable You, These Foolish Things?”
He shakes his head a few times and lets out a deep breath. “Damn. You just really got me there. Who does she sound like? Katy Perry? Rihanna? Beyonce?”
“Love those ladies, but yeah, I’m gonna have to say none of them.”
So what if we don’t have the same taste in tunes? It’s not the end of the world. Focus instead on his firm, sculpted body. “So, did you have to work today?” I ask. Meters, after all, can be violated on weekends too.
“No, but I did take a training class this morning.”
I brighten. I love to learn new stuff. “What did you learn?”
“It was fascinating.” He leans forward on the bench, closer to me. His eyes really are magnetic. They’re like the color of a clear blue sky, a sapphire even. “You see, there are sections of the city that are moving to resident-only parking during certain times of the day, but at other times of the day, other people, not just the residents, can park there too. But on weekends, you see, it’s only the residents. But during the day, like, anyone can park there. So it’s just really, you know, it’s just you need to focus on when the cars are illegally parked and when they’re not.” He furrows his brow.
I nod a few times, waiting for him to explain the part of this that seems so complicated to him. Dave closes his eyes for a second, squeezing them shut, repeating a mantra, “Residents only – only residents can park. Other times – anyone can park.” He opens his eyes and breathes out. “Yep. Yep. Sometimes I need these little sayings to help me remember.”
“Like a mnemonic device.”
He purses his brow. “Like pressurized air and stuff?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s pneumatics,” I say, pausing for a moment to tuck my hair behind my ears. “You know, it’s like a memory aid?”
“A memory aid!” He’s excited, delighted at the idea. “That’s great. That is exactly what I need.”